Protect state climate act's funds for intended uses
By The Herald Editorial Board
As is typical for the state Legislature toward the end of a session as it confronts adoption of budgets, there are plenty of balls in the air, more so as lawmakers must also plug some significant budget holes in supplemental and upcoming budgets.
Three separate operating budgets — the governor’s and those from the House and Senate — set different paths for spending and the resources from which to fund them. But as state officials confront a growing list of needs, demands and commitments — including making up for deep cuts to federal health and social service programs imposed by Congress’ passage last year of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, leaving states to pick up the slack — a relatively new bucket of funding tempts as a possible source to fund those needs.
Since 2023, under the state’s Climate Commitment Act and its cap-and-invest program, Washington has run auctions for carbon-dioxide emission allowances that the state’s largest polluters must bid on and pay. The auctions are meant partly as incentive for those industries, including fossil fuel refineries, power plants and other industries to find ways to pollute less, but at the same time generate a source of revenue — a ton of carbon at a time — for specific projects.
The revenue generated by the auctions — a total of $1.68 billion for 2025 and more than $4.3 billion since the start of the auctions in 2023 — is then made available for a range of investments that advance clean energy projects, fund climate resilience solutions and aid communities, including tribes, overburdened by pollution or climate impacts.
https://www.heraldnet.com/2026/03/07/editorial-protect-state-climate-acts-funds-for-intended-uses/